


Innocence Glitched

by monstersinthecosmos



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Christmas fic, M/M, daniel's history of lacklustre christmases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstersinthecosmos/pseuds/monstersinthecosmos
Summary: Christmas isn't Daniel's favorite holiday.





	Innocence Glitched

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! This is my [@vcsecretgifts](http://vcsecretgifts.tumblr.com/) submission for [@eliestela](http://eliestela.tumblr.com/)! Hope you like it, darling! <3 [Check the tumblr post for an accompanying piece of art haha!](http://vcsecretgifts.tumblr.com/post/181368359720/merry-christmas-eliestela-i-wrote-you-a-fic)
> 
>  
> 
> Title borrowed from [Innocence Glitched by Mudeth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RVt8Q_O8Sk).

 

**1961**

* * *

 

Someone teases him at school because he’s excited to go to the city on the weekend. His mom is going to bring him to see the big tree and meet Santa at Macy’s. He keeps his hands to himself, cause last time the sister smacked him for lashing out, but his face goes red and he crosses his arms over his chest and pouts about it until his head hurts.

His mom swats him on the butt the next day and tells him to go talk to Santa, and an elf comes to drag him to the dais. They lift him under the arms to plop him into Santa’s lap, and he goes through the motions but he can’t stop the way the kids at school ring in his ears. _Danny still believes in Santa! Danny still believes in Santa!_ But… he wants to believe. Santa laughs and pats him on the head and he does his best to keep his chin up about it.

But he gets through all the boxes on Christmas morning, and he’s surrounded by the carnage of shredded paper and colorful ribbons, and it’s not there. He’s got a new bike, and a cap gun with a little holster that looks like the ones in the Westerns he sees with his dad, and a Whirlybird full of little green army men.

He smiles and thanks his parents, and they don’t correct him, and his face goes red and he tries not to pout about it.

So he helps clean up the mess, and he changes into his nice clothes, and he falls asleep on the floor in the sea of his new toys for a little while because he’s still tired from midnight mass, and Mom is wearing her Christmas apron in the kitchen for hours and Dad is smoking cigarettes all day and all of it feels less like magic than it used to.

Shop Around by The Miracles is playing on the radio as he props his chin in his hand and arranges the army men in a neat line. He’ll think of this moment for the rest of his life, every time he hears this song.

He’d asked Santa for an Ideal Robot Commando and it’s not here, and the kids at school were right.

 

 

 

**1972**

* * *

 

He’s been fucking the cute brunette he met in his _Critical Function of the Press_ class for a couple months but it’s not that serious.

She’s cool, Daniel thinks. Smart, beautiful. But he’s finally away from his family, trying to enjoy college, isn’t trying to get all heavy about it. This is his first Christmas without any of them; he decided not to go home, despite his mom begging on the phone. She kept saying his father could pay for the plane ticket if it was about the money, and Daniel kept saying it was because of his new job at the newspaper.

They don’t know it’s a lie. There’s no job. They never even ask what the newspaper is called so he never bothers to make one up.

The truth is that he just wants to be left alone, just for a few days. He wants to enjoy the campus being a ghost town. He wants to smoke dope in his room and play his Black Sabbath record loud enough for the whole floor to hear, because no one will be around to tell him not to. He wants to find some lonely weirdos at the bars on Christmas Eve, drinking by themselves, and he wants to ask them questions about their failures. Maybe he’ll bring one home.

But the cute brunette shows up at his dorm as he’s getting ready to go out, and he’s too high to navigate the look of hurt on her face and the little gift in her hands. She wants to argue about it and he doesn’t think he has the attention span to participate. He should turn Sabbath down to hear her better, but he leans in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, and stares at the ground in mild shame.

He didn’t get her anything. She’s local, still lives at home, and it didn’t occur to him that she might want to spend time together.

Turns out, she thinks he’s her boyfriend.

Shit, maybe it is that serious.

 

 

 

**1973**

* * *

 

Daniel doesn’t even remember that it’s Christmas until the sun comes up and he feels safe enough to leave the stuffy confines of his motel room. The light hurts his eyes after hiding in the dark all night, and it’s enough to trigger the warning signs of a migraine, but he’s fucking starving and this is the only time he can go. He can’t remember the last time he ate.

It’s a rude awakening when none of the shops nearby are open, and it takes him a moment of absorbing all the poinsettias everywhere, the papier-mâché stars in the windows, to remember. It sinks in his heart a little bit as he trudges back to the motel. He hadn’t wanted to see his family last year, and probably doesn’t now. But he feels so isolated all of a sudden, so far away from them. His mom can’t even call. She has no idea where he is.

He’s not sure he knows where he is, either.

“Merry fuckin’ Christmas to me,” he mumbles to the empty street. What a way to spend your life, buddy.

He thinks the woman at the motel desk has seemed grumpy the last couple days, but maybe she’s taking pity on him, or maybe it’s holiday cheer. She gives him a lukewarm cup of coffee and says she’ll have _ponche con piquete_ later if he wants to stop by at night.

Tempting, and something cracks inside his heart as he declines. He’d love to, he tells her, and that’s true, but he can’t.

Of course, he doesn’t tell her why.

 

 

 

**1975**

* * *

  

He finds a nightclub open in West Hollywood and there’s a line in the bathroom to do blow in the stalls. He fidgets a little but waits his turn with the rest of the lonely weirdos.

It’s not so lonely once he gets breakfast up his nose, though. He emerges refreshed, ready. He talks to people, he dances. There are hard bodies around him, warm mouths, strong hands on his hips.

He wonders if Armand can get jealous.

It shakes something loose in the back of his head as he realizes he hopes so.

The music is loud enough to thump in his chest, his veins. His ears hurt. He closes his eyes but he can still make out the strobe lights.

He hasn’t been afraid of Armand for a while now, but thinks this is maybe the first time he misses him.

 

 

 

**1980**

* * *

 

There’s a procession of people in the streets heading to midnight mass, children leading the way to the _nacimiento_ , and Daniel wants to join them. He stares up at the clock on _Templo de San Antonio_ and tries to remember the time difference; his mom probably went to her mass already.

Something guilty gnaws on his insides and he thinks he should go in, but Armand is tugging at his wrist, pulling him in the other direction. They weave through people and cross the street, and no one seems to notice as they slip around the corner of the art museum. It’s that way Armand has, that Daniel doesn’t completely understand. He watches Armand’s back, the slight set to his shoulders, as he touches the door frame, as he tilts his head, as Daniel hears the locks clicking inside.

And then they’re in, and it’s dark at first, but he thinks Armand is turning on the footlights. It seems like Armand is turning the lights on a few pieces at a time, as they walk circles through the hallways, just long enough to watch them for a little while.

He’s at his most dangerous like this, Daniel thinks. Maybe Armand can hear him thinking it, but he doesn’t react, and that’s what drives the idea home. He’s peaceful like this, almost human. He watches the casual posture and placid face and can see the strength beneath it, the monstrosity.

But, he realizes, maybe this isn’t too bad. He’s had worse Christmases.

They stop for a long time in the Herrán exhibit, and Armand stares at the unfinished panel of _Nuestros dioses_ long enough that Daniel starts to get nervous. He goes still, and his face never changes, but it’s creepy that someone made of such soft angles, with such a warm face, can be so obviously unnatural. He doesn’t twitch, or blink, or breathe. Just stares and stares.

His heart is pounding, Armand can probably hear it, but he swallows around it and steps closer. He’s never come into Armand’s space like this before, but he’s feeling reckless.

There’s dull warmth in Armand’s hand, like he maybe fed earlier. Not warm like a human, but not the usual startling cold. Daniel slips their fingers together and leans in until their shoulders are bumping.

Armand blinks slowly, and lowers his head from the painting. He stares down at where Daniel has taken his hand and the pitch of Daniel’s heart makes him kinda nauseous.

 

 

 

**1983**

* * *

 

He wonders if he should buy a Christmas present. He thinks Armand might be his boyfriend.

Stale sunlight sneaks between the curtains that morning and he remembers the look of rejection on the girl’s face that time in college. He’s never gotten this far in a relationship, where they take something like Christmas seriously. Like, Armand gets him gifts all the time. At this point it doesn’t really mean that much. It’s how Armand expresses himself, in his own weird way.

But he’s always weird about Christmas. They’ve spent a few together now. He never makes it about Christmas, but he always does that Armand thing, that cryptic Catholic weird Armand thing. Stares at gruesome religious artwork for a long time and stands outside when midnight mass ends, fascinated by seeing so many people at night.

Last week he puzzled for a long time over the weird Americana, asking a hundred questions about the Santa Claus he saw on a Coke ad, and demanding that Daniel explain Rudolph to him. He wanted to know all the details about what Christmas was like for him as a kid, but refused to answer when Daniel asked the same. Typical. Daniel groans and rolls onto his back, throws his forearm over his eyes to block out the light.

What are you supposed to get someone like Armand, anyway? He has everything. He needs nothing.

They see Depeche Mode that night, and it’s the last show of the tour, and maybe he’s hammered on Ratsherrn and seeing double but Armand looks happier than Daniel’s ever seen him, airy and human and young and it’s so nice to see him enjoying himself that it aches. He sneaks away during Boys Say Go and knows Armand is probably listening to his thoughts, but that’s okay. He finds the merch table and buys a t-shirt in an extra small.

He’s got the spins on the way back, and keeps the shirt bunched in a wad in his fanny pack, and hopes that if Armand actually wears the shirt from time to time it’ll help him hold onto this memory.

The next afternoon, when he wakes up stiff and hungover with his ears still ringing, he wonders if it was a dumb idea. It takes him a little while to get moving, to shower and shave and scavenge for food, and he’s feeling sober and silly about everything but it’s Christmas Eve and he doesn’t have time for anything else. So he irons it and folds it nice, puts it in a shiny gift bag. It’ll have to do.

Armand is the type of person who never wears the same clothes twice, who would rather buy Daniel a new wardrobe than find them a hotel with a laundry service, who grabs Daniel to take off in the night without remembering he has worldly possessions.

It’s probably stupid, but. Whatever, it’s done.

(Later, Armand’s smile is so soft and human that Daniel wants to die, and he wears the shirt so much the words start fading off the front.)

 

 

**1984**

* * *

 

Daniel doesn’t know it yet, but it’s his last Christmas as a mortal.

Next year, he’ll wake up in the dark in Kwajalein, and Armand’s skin will be cold, his hands like vices on Daniel’s hips. But for now, it’s his bed on Night Island, and the windows are open and Armand is hot when he slides in under the covers with him. His mouth is warm and wet on the back of Daniel’s neck, and that the heat is stolen isn’t as repulsive as it used to be. He hums approval and wiggles back against Armand’s dense body, and wants to sleep a little more.

It’s unusual, though. Feverish. After a while it’s sweltering, and his shirt is sticking to his back. He wonders how many people Armand killed for this.

“I felt festive,” Armand answers from behind him. His arms pull tighter around Daniel’s waist.

He shouldn’t find that funny, but he chuckles softly against his pillow. Ridiculous.

“They tore it,” Armand says after a while.

“Tore what?”

Armand shifts behind him and he’s nuzzling against the back of Daniel’s head, smelling his hair. “The shirt.”

He rolls over to see, and Armand’s face is the usual deadpan, cheeks red and eyes bloodshot. It isn’t repulsive, it’s not that, but there’s a gentle chill in Daniel’s spine that Armand can wear the gluttony on his body like this. Right in his face.

His eyebrow raises and he pulls at the collar of his shirt, and Daniel sees where it’s been torn away. It reveals the hollow of Armand’s clavicle, the skin flushed healthy human pink. He can’t be sure if it’s his imagination or something that Armand is putting into his head, but he thinks he can see it. See the hands grabbing at him, hears it rip. See the way Armand rages over it.

“That’s okay,” Daniel says. It is, really. He’s surprised Armand even likes it this much, that it’s made it this far. He pokes at the exposed patch of skin and cracks a half smile. “It’s a shame, it was cute on you.”

Armand doesn’t say anything, just stares ahead, gaze empty, and Daniel curls into the warmth. There are alarm signals looping around his brain— _this creature is dangerous_ —but he ignores it. He isn’t afraid to pretend that it’s normal, that it’s real. Opportunities like this are rare. He leans his head on Armand’s chest, and the shirt is so soft now, and he falls back asleep.

He thinks he dreamed. The bed is empty when he wakes up again, and he has this fuzzy memory of walking through Herald Square with his mom, and he isn’t sure what time it is but he knows a few hours have gone by. He feels it in his muscles, like his body is thanking him for finally getting some sleep in the dark. Funny how it knows. These last few years have put such a beating on his circadian rhythm.

It’s quiet in the apartment, and he thinks he’s being quiet in turn, but Armand hears him enter the living room and looks up. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, shirtless, and the flames are the only thing lighting the room. It splashes orange on half his face.

“What are you doing?” Daniel asks. He approaches and his eyes adjust in the dark and he sees something in Armand’s lap. His hands are moving back and forth, and the curls fall down in his face as he watches what he’s doing.

“I’m fixing it.”

It doesn’t register until he gets close enough to feel the heat of the fire and kneels on the floor. The shirt. It’s bunched there in a ball and he’s putting tiny, machine-quality stitches into the collar to put it back together. He laughs at first, maybe to deflect his real reaction, and reaches to touch Armand’s forearm. It’s been hours but sitting so close to the fire has kept his skin warm.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. Maybe Armand can hear the real thoughts behind it, deep in his mind where he can’t find them. “It’s just a shirt.”

He feels silly the moment he says it, feels arrogant for assuming it’s about him. Armand is a weirdo, he gets obsessive sometimes. Maybe it’s random. He pulls his hand away and leans back on his heels, and Armand pauses, looks at him dead in the eyes.

Awkward still, how magnetic it can feel. He can’t move and doesn’t know if Armand does it to him on purpose. For a moment he feels the connection between them, stretched across a chasm, and there are entire worlds, entire lives. Armand’s eyes are large and dark and depthless and he feels it inside his own skull, squeezing at his brain. It’s there, there’s meaning, but he can’t read it. For a moment he doesn’t breathe.

But Armand just blinks slowly, his eyelashes full and pretty, almost girly, and when he looks away Daniel feels the tension leave his body. He leans back and Armand continues to sew. The tiny needle gleams in the light like his fingernails.

“I wanted to keep it.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi on [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/monstersinthecosmos)!!


End file.
